I dreamt I could taste
your lies on my tongue.
I could not hold them
in very long. They
buzzed around my mouth
like angry, pent-up
bees until I spat
and spat, wiped the froth
from the corners of
my mouth with a soft
shirtsleeve. I covered
my ears while they zigged
and zagged and circled
around me, a corps
of tiny, taunting
needle points all dressed
up in fine black ties
and adoring eyes.

It broke on a black winter night, the kind
that is so silent it feels like the pulse
of the earth has stopped. There was no wind, no
incessant barking of the neighbor’s dog,
no distant whoosh of passing traffic on
the highway across the glassy white field.

The only audible signs of life came
from him, the staccato of his knife on
the wooden board, and his faint, even breaths -
the legato. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Smooth in,
smooth out. Soon the water cymbal would hiss…

She came in and sat at the end of the
table. He glanced up, offered a small smile.
A pause in the rhythm. Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Pause. Smooth in, smooth out. She met his glance,
then greeted the napkin in front of her,
ran her fingertip along the crisp fold.

Tap, tap, tap, tap. Smooth in, smooth out. And then
she said it. So flatly, not with the itch
of a tongue heavy with news, nor the hushed
telling of a secret (though it was both).
Tap, tap, tap, tap. Pause… He didn’t take a
breath until he felt the burn in his lungs.
A sharp inhale. No more cutting. He waited
for her, for the words to rush in like a
guest who is late to Friday dinner.

But the room was as silent as the earth.
He felt the burn in his lungs again but
didn’t inhale. He needed to hear her,
needed those words to arrive, peel away
the silence the way he unwound his scarf
in their mudroom when he came in from the
cold. He waited, the knife frozen in flight.
The pause became a halt. The crescendo.

When he could stand the burn no longer, he
inhaled. Clunk. The knife fell onto the board.
As if on cue, the hiss of the water
came in like a cymbal. They both looked at
the pot instinctively. Then at each other.
Her eyes darted to the napkin, then the
mudroom door – and he realized she wasn’t
going to say anything more; the words
weren’t on their way. She was already
set on her exit. She had already
cocooned herself in enough layers to
keep out the chill. He began to feel how
thin his sweater was, like paper. How thin
the air felt each December. How thin he
had become to her, that he could be wiped
away in one deft motion, like the frost
that clung to the windows over the stove.

He moved toward her, reached out – why? Why was
he reaching for her when she couldn’t be
held onto…? The sound stopped him. Glass. Something
breaking. He scanned the floor. The pieces were
little kaleidoscopes, fragmenting the
navy pattern on the floor below them.
He must have knocked down something… He lifted
his gaze, to ask her to help him clean up.

At the end of the table, a chair sat
vacant, pushed back haphazardly so the
left leg rumpled the edge of the rug, worn
from a decade of that same chair being
pushed back against it. And on the table,
an empty space where the napkin had been.

The nights in this house are long and still.
Candles break the darkness, small orange
spheres of color strewn along the walls.
I like the feel of the thick carpet
drowning my bare feet, keeping out the
new chill in the air. In the distance,
fireworks pop-pop in formal cadence,
disrupting the silence. It is not
the solitude I dislike, but the
absence: these empty rooms and empty
glasses. My mercurial moods have
been hushed by this house and now I am
empty too. It is not the space I
dislike, but the stillness. Am I alive
if I am not being stirred up like
the waters before a storm? Should I
learn to be still? I prefer the stir
of my heart’s flighty, willful cravings.

The nights in this house are long and still.
My bare feet drown in this thick carpet.
I try to be still, to be absent.
In the distance, the fireworks pop-pop.

I Feel Fancy

That Legal & Karmic Stuff

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